Getting to 6 months exclusively bfing - how was it for you 1%ers?

[babydriver]

Hi, my DS2 is 16 weeks and I'm hoping to continue exclusive bfing certainly into his fifth month and wd like to try to get to six months if poss before weaning. I started weaning DS1 at about 19 weeks but wd prefer to avoid the puree faff or at least put it off a while second time around!

What was it like for those of you who managed to bf exclusively for 5/6/7 months or so? Did you end up doing lots more feeds, or did feeds simply go on for longer? How did weaning go? Any impact on sleep? (DS doesn't sleep through at the mo anyway!) Wd like to hear what I might be letting myself and DS in for.

DD is 21 weeks now, and I have found that the feeds are more spaced out and shorter, as she has become a more efficient feeder. From all I have read on MN I really don't think solids help at all with sleep.

Feeds got shorter, I'd say. She seemed to get very efficient at it. Sometimes woke a couple of times at night, but usually just the once. I couldn't tell you how many feeds she was having, as I never totted up.

It wasn't a problem though, besides the usual "can't go anywhere without her" thing (can't face expressing!).

I tell you what though, there was much less pressure to wean her than there was with DD1, and I think that's entirely to do with not being around a gang from ante and post natal groups with babies the same age. We've done our own thing with very few people interested in the minute details.

It was depressing around 4 months when he started to wake MORE frequently, it felt like a regression, but good as feeds got more and more efficient and I got those middle-of-the-night marathons down to a nippy 12-15 minutes, in and out!

I did it with both boys.

About 17 weeks I had a massive feedathon with both boys, which meant they fed All The Time for about a week [knackered]

But then they settled and fed far less frequently.

And I found it quite depressing in many ways to move onto food, really. SO much easier to stuff them up your top and continue chatting without breaking stride

Sleep - DS1 slept well from about 4.5m to about 5.5m and then he started cutting teeth. He then started getting horribly high temperatures each time he cut a tooth from when he was one, which dramatically affected his sleep.

I don't think food amounts have ever affected my children's sleep, truly. Teeth, yes. DS1 slept through fairly reliably from 19m and was cheerfully taking his bear and his drink up for a nap in the late morning/early afternoon at that age too. DS2 is 16m...and we won't talk about it...

Neither of them ate a great deal when they first started eating food - DS1 probably upped his food intake about 9m but DS2 not till more like 10. Both now could eat at County level...!

So no, I didn't do lots more feeds, apart from around the 17 week mark, as I said. DS1 I gave food to at 6m, but DS2 was 27+3 when he first had anything, because it was in the massively hot weather last summer and I didn't want to introduce him to food when it was 90 degrees because I felt it might interfere with his fluid balance in the heat - I didn't want him constipated, for instance.

Very little changed for my DDs between 4 and 6 months, agree that they get really good at chugging by the time 6 months comes, and I had continued to feed on demand. Didn't really impact on sleep (or lack of) either, which I found very surprising.

Weaning is MUCH easier at 6 months, you bypass most of the hardest things ( but not mess unfortunately)

I am still bf my eighteen month old, one feed a day just before bed. Since twelve months she has been gradually self weaning, even dropping a night feed of her own volition. I didn't believe this really happened but it does apparently. She eats solids perfectly well, and btw has never bitten me either, maybe I've been lucky!!! She is however in for a rude awakening soon, bless her, as I don't want to do this much longer, I feel I've done my bit now!!!!

The survey DID NOT say 1% exclusively bf to 6 months. The survey said 1% are still exclusively bf AT six months. Grrrrr Even Tiktok agrees with me.

Ahhh, that's better. Sorry folks, just had to clear that one up. As you were... (I don't belong here having exclusively bf for a measly 5 days or so )

it was fine, and I was very pleased and proud to have done it.
I didn't really notice any increase in time/number of feeds.
I avoided the puree faff altogether by doing BLW.
sleep wassat? no particular difference.
I was certainly in no hurry to wean, exclusive bf was so convenient

Oh I never went to the clinic
I once went to the surgery for my pill check and the HV ran out to try and make me go into her office
but I was too quick for her

Started to wean just before 5 and half months, as LO had dropped 2 percentile lines on just breast milk. BF councillor told me to get a move on with weaning!

BF counsellor from which organisation?

Not sure, she was also a HV, and I went to see her at the breastfeeding cafe at the local children's centre. 2 HVs before her said the same, so I went to see her!

It was fab. Went to 6 months, feeds as normal. Weaning was easy. Sleep was good.

She may very well not have been a fully-trained bf counsellor.

Oh, - she was who I was referred to when I asked to see one. No problems bf on demand and LO doubled his weight at 10 weeks, but started dropping a few weeks before weaning, so began.

Didn't bother with mush tho as was taken by surprise and hadn't bought a musher! As he seemed to have no problem eating didn't buy one. Weight back on original line now!

Didnt notice tbh - just carried on bfing on demand as we had been since he was born & started solids at 29 weeks when I couldnt take his mourneful expression at mealtimes any longer ....but even then after the initial thrill or having some new tasty toys he wasnt that bothered after a couple of weeks so he didnt really have regular food (ie at least once a day) until he was nearer 8 or 9 months.

Sleep wasnt affected at all by solids & ddnt notice any change to his feeds...but then hadnt done so for the previous 6 months either - just fed when he wanted it & didnt pay much attention to his habits etc. I was confident that he didnt actually need any solids until much much later so didnt see it as an issue at all tbh.

think I made it to 5.5 months with DD before she had sopme carrot puree or something -let myself be pressured into it by HV and friends - didn't know as much then as I do now
Anyhow DDs feeds didn't get more frequent exc ept for the odd growth spurt involving a couple days of feeding frenzies in the evening.

going to try to make it to 6 with DS. he's 11.5 weeks and sleeps 9-10 hours at night I keep waiting for that particular bubble to burst....he is an infinitely easier baby than DD though (no colic this time Califrau!)

I didn't notice much difference in either of the ds's as far as wanting less breast milk after they started solids. Ds2 only turned 6 months last week so has tried solids 4 times so far. He seems to like it well enough but he didn't appear as if "oh where has this stuff been all my life". Just found it interesting mainly. His feeds up until now have gotten increasingly shorter and more efficient although the aforementioned growth spurts were tough to get through.

Haven't noticed too much difference in sleep really. I seem to breed bad sleepers

I found that they get more efficient as you go along. They feed really quickly. Stopped BF about 6mths because they couldn't concentrate on feeding nadstrated to annoy me bobbing on and off all the time during a feed!!

I don't really count because of our difficult start with mixed feeding for ds's first 4 weeks, but after that we did exclusively bf to 6.5 months. I found it absolutely no problem to wait - in fact I rather dreaded the faff of weaning. ds was a frequent feeder (day and night) but I was fine with that, particularly after our rough start. And from about 4 months his feeds had got a lot quicker, which made a lot more difference to me than the frequency. In fact, after the difficult start I genuinely found bf a piece of p*ss. We introduced solids very slowly and gently indeed and it took until he was 10 or 11 months for him to be eating decent 'amounts'.

Sleep was as bad as ever after starting weaning (he'd wake 5-6 times a night for a feed - we had his cot next to our bed so disruption was reasonably minimal), but at 9 or 10 months he started sorting it out all by himself. It took until after a year before he'd sleep through reliably, but now at 2 nights like these, where he wakes, are the absolute exception.

I really enjoyed it (well still am as do 2 bfs a day at 9months). Feeds definitely got quicker, probably about every 2-3 hours during the day and once in the night by 5-6 months. Started weaning just short of 6 months when ds started waking 2-3 times in the night for a feed, but in hindsight this was probably just a growth spurt and we could have left it longer (he LOVED the food though). He did go back to once a night after a week or so of weaning, but would have done anyway if it was a growth spurt - don't think the solids had any effect on his sleep.

The hardest thing (apart from the first four months that is..) was fielding the countless "he's not on solids yet..?" questions from all and sundry [sigh].

Sleep went wonky a few times but as bf had finally got so easy I was more than happy to go with it. I didn't get the impression that he was desperate for food - everything went into his mouth and he took an increasing interest in everything we did but I didn't interprate these "signs" as a craving for baby rice. I didn't really feel that he was taking more and feeds were shorter but when taking expressed milk he was on 8oz so he obviously just got much more efficient.

Now that he's on solids he's started waking up for a feed at 5am after previously going till 7 so go figure (I'm not suggesting they are related by the way, just that their sleeping patterns are subject to change without notice and will continue to whatever they're fed).

DD is 20 weeks now and aiming to get to 26. Definitely the most difficult thing is responding for the nth time to the constant bloody questions about why am I not giving her 'food'. She has a cold at the moment and MIL reckons it's cos breastmilk is not enough...

I was really sad to wean DS - I loved the idea that every single molecule of him was made by me.

DP on the other hand was desperately excited, I think becuase DS was bf he hadn't been able to get involved with the food side of things and was excited to start. Needless to say, the excitement wore off in about a week and now he will do anything to get out of having pasta thrown at his hair.